it be best and reason teacheth us, when we feel how weak our knowledge and love is, to long for more; yea, for perfection.

Sect. 43. Thus hath reason showed us the end and highest felicity of man, in his highest duty: to know God, to love him and delight in him, in the fullest perfection, and to be loved by him, and be fully pleasing to him, as herein bearing his image, is the felicity and ultimate end of man. Love is man's final God, so beheld and And here the soul

act, excited by the fullest knowledge; and enjoyed in his love to us, is the final object. must seek its rest. m

Object. But, quæ supra nos nihil ad nos. God, indeed, is near to angels; but he hath made them our benefactors, and they have committed it to inferior causes. There must be suitableness as well as excellency to win love: we find no suitableness between our hearts and God. And, therefore, we believe not that we were made for any such employment. And we see that the far greater part of mankind are as averse to this life of holiness as ourselves; and, therefore, we cannot think but that it is quite above the nature of man, and not the work and end which he was made for.

Answ. 1. Whether God have made angels our rulers or benefactors, or what love or honour we owe them as his instruments, is nothing to our present business; for if it be granted that he thus useth them, it is most certain that he is nevertheless himself our benefactor, and nevertheless near us. What nearness to us they have, we are much uncertain; but that he himself is our total benefactor, and always with us, as near to us as we are to ourselves, is past all question, and proved before.

2. There neither is, nor can be, any object so suitable for our love as God; he hath all goodness in him, and all in the creature is derived from him, and dependeth on him; and he hath given us all that ever we ourselves received, and must give us all that ever we shall receive hereafter. He is allsufficient for the supply of all our wants, and granting all our just desires, and making us perfect; all that he doth for us he doth in love, as an intellectual free agent; and he is still present with us, upholding us, and giving us the very love

m Sursum animum vocant initia sua : erit autem illic, etiam antequam hac custodia exolvatur, si vitia sua deseruit, purusque ac lenis in cogitationes divinas emicuit.-Senec. Ep. 80.--Tutum iter est, jucundum est, ad quod natura te instruxit. Dedit tibi illa quæ si non deserueris, par Deo consurges. Parem autem Deo te pecunia non facit, etc.- Senec. Ep. 13.

And

which he demandeth; and he created us for himself, to be his own, and gave us these faculties to know and love him. can any, then, be a more suitable object of our love?

3. Do you not find that your understandings have a suitableness or inclination to truth and knowledge, and would you not know the best and greatest things? and know the cause of all the wonderful effects which you see? And what is this but to know God? And do you not find that your wills have a suitableness to good, as such, in the general, and to your own felicity? And do you not know that it should not be unnatural to any man to love that best which is best, and especially which is best for him; and to love him best who is his greatest benefactor, and most worthy of his love in all respects? And can you doubt whether God be most worthy of your love? All this is plain and sure. And will men's averseness to the love of God then disprove it? It is natural for man to desire knowledge, as that which perfecteth his understanding; and yet boys are averse to learn their books, because they are slothful, and are diverted by the love of play. What if your servants be averse and slothful to your service; doth it follow that it is not their duty, or that you hired them not for it? What if your wife and children be averse to love you, is it therefore none of their duty so to do? Rebels are averse to obey their governors, and yet it is their duty to obey them. If your child, or any one that is most beholden to you, should be averse to love and gratitude to you, as thousands are to their parents and benefactors, will it follow that nature obliged them not to it?"

4. What can you think is suitable to your love, if God be not? is it lust, or play, or meat, and drink, and ease? A swine hath a nature as suitable to these as you. Is it only to deal ingenuously and honourably in providing for the flesh, and maintaining the fuel of these sensualities, by buildings, trading, manufactures, ornaments, and arts? All this is but to have a

" Quod si pœna, si metus supplicii, non ipsa turpitudo, deterret ab injuriosa, facinorosaque vitâ, nemo est injustus: at incauti potius habendi sunt improbi : callidi, non boni sunt, qui utilitate tantum, non ipso honesto, ut boni viri sint moventur.-Cicer. de leg. l. 1. p. 289.--Complent bona corporis beatissimam vitam; sed ita ut sine illis possit beata vita existere. Ita enim parvæ et exiguæ sunt istæ accessiones bonorum, ut sicut stellæ in radio solis, sic istæ in virtutum splendore, ne cernantur quidem. Atque hæc ut verè dicitur parva esse ad beatè vivendum momenta ista corporis commodorum, sic nimis violentum est, nulla esse dicere. Qui enim sic disputant, obliti mihi videntur quæ ipsi egerint principia naturæ. Tribuendum est his aliquid, dummodo quantum tribuendum sit intelligas.-Piso in Cicerone de Finib. l. 5. p. 202.

reason to serve your sense, and so the swinish part still shall be the chief; for that which is the chief and ruling object with you doth show which is the chief and regnant faculty. If sensual objects be the chief, then sense is the chief faculty with you. And if you had the greatest wit in the world, and used it only to serve your guts, and throats, and lust, in a more effectual and ingenious way than any other men could do, this were but to be an ingenious beast, or to have an intellect bound in service to your bellies. And can you think that things so little satisfying, and so quickly perishing, are more suitable objects for your love than God?

5. What say you to all them that are otherwise minded, and that take the love of God for their work and happiness? They find a suitableness in God to their highest esteem and love; and are they not as fit judges for the affirmative as you for the negative?

Object. They do but force themselves to some acts of fancy. Answ. You see that they are such acts as are the more serious and prevalent in their lives, and can make them lay by other pleasures, and spend their days in seeking God, and lay down their lives in the exercise and hopes of love. And that it is you that follow fancy, and they that follow solid reason, is evident in the reason of your several ways. That world which you set above God, is at last called vanity by all that try it: reason will not finally justify your choice; but I have here showed you undeniable reason for their choice and love; and, therefore, it is they that know what they do, and obey the law of nature, which you obliterate and contradict.

Object. But we see the creature, but God we see not, and we find it not natural to us to love that which we do not see. Answ. Is not reason a nobler faculty than sight? If it be, why should it not more rule you, and dispose of you? O Shall no subjects honour and obey their king but those that see him? You can love your money, and land, and friends, when they are out of sight.

Object. But these are things visible in their nature.

Answ. They are so much the more vile, and less amiable. P Your own souls are invisible, will you not, therefore, love them?

• Unum verò finem Aristotelis declaravit, esse usum virtutis in vita sancta et integra.-Hesych. Illust. in Aristot.

P Piso ubi suprà, in Cic. saith, that all the difference in this between the Stoics and the Peripatetics and Academics is but this, whether corporal

You never saw the life, or form, of any plant or living wight; you see the beauty of your roses, and many other flowers, but you see not the life and form within, which causeth all that beauty and variety, which yet must be more excellent than the effect. Can you doubt whether all things which appear here to your sight have an invisible cause and Maker? Or can you think him less amiable, because he is invisible, that is, more excellent? 6. In a word, it is most evident, that all this averseness of men's hearts to the love of God is their sin and depravity; and the unsuitableness of their nature is, because they are vitiated with sensuality, and deceived by sensible things; a disease to be cured, and not defended. Their sin will not prove the contrary no duty.

7. And yet, while we are in flesh, though God be not visible to us, his works are, and it is in them (the frame of the world) that he hath revealed and exposed himself to our love; it is in this visible glass that we must see his image, and in that image must love him: and if we will love any goodness, we must love his; for all is his, and as his should be loved by us.

CHAP. XIII.

Experiments of the Difficulty of all this Duty, and what it will cost a Man that will live this Holy Life.

HITHERTO I have proved that there is a God, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Creator, and consequently the Owner, the Ruler, and the Father, or chief Good of man; and that man, as his creature, is absolutely his own, and therefore should resign himself, as his own, to his disposal; and that he is absolutely his subject, and, therefore, should most exactly and diligently obey him; and I have showed particularly wherein; also, that man is his total beneficiary, and made to love him, as his chief Good and End; and therefore should totally devote himself to him, in gratitude and love, and desire him, seek him, and delight in him above all the world, and live in his praises and continual service. ¶ All this is fully proved

things shall be called no good at all, or only such little goods as to be next to none. P. 202, 203. To the shame of those nominal Christians, who know no greater good than they.

a Si quis est hoc robore animi atque hac indole virtutis, ac continentiæ, ut respuat omnes voluptates, omnemque vitæ suæ cursum labore corporis, atque

to be man's duty. And now let us see on what terms he standeth in the world for the performance of it.

Sect. 1. There is in the present disposition of man a great averseness to such a life of resignation, obedience, and love to God, as is before described, even when he cannot deny it to be his duty, and to be the best, most honourable, and most felicitating life.

Too sad experience confirmeth this. The bad are so averse, that they will not be persuaded to it; the godly have such a mixture of averseness, as findeth them matter of continual conflict. It is this averseness which serveth instead of arguments against it, or which is a pondus to the very judgment, and maketh it so hard to believe any arguments which go against so strong a contrary inclination.

Sect. 2. We find the senses of men are grown masterly and inordinate, and are too eagerly set upon their objects, and hold down the mind from rising higher, and cause it to adhere to things terrene.

So that man's life now is like that of the brutes; it is things of the same nature that he valueth and adhereth to, and most men live to no higher ends but to enjoy their sensual pleasure while they may.

Sect. 3. We find that reason in most men is so debilitated, that it cannot potently reduce itself into action, nor see that practically which speculatively it confesseth, nor clearly and powerfully observe those perfections of God in his works, nor those duties of man, which we are convinced to be true; but, by inconsiderateness and dull apprehensions, is almost as no reason to them, and falleth down before their sensuality.

Sect. 4. Hereupon men grow as strangers unto God, and have no thoughts of him but dark, and dull, and ineffectual.

Sect 5. The world is full of allurements to the flesh, and those

in animi contentione conficiat, quem non quies, non remissio, non æqualium studia, non ludi, non convivia delectant, nihil in vita expetendum putet, nisi quod est cum laude et honore conjunctum; hunc, meâ sententiâ, divinis quibusdamn bonis instructum atque ornatum puto.-Cic. pro Cal. Malè de me loquuntur, sed mali: moverer, si de me Marc. Cato, si Lælius sapiens, si duo Scipiones ista loquerentur. Nunc malis displicere, laudare est.-Seneca. Videturne summa improbitate usus non sine summa esse ratione. Nec scena solum referta est his sceleribus, sed multo vita communis pone majoribus. Sentit domus unius cujusque, sentit forum, sentit curia, campus socii, provincia, ut quemadmodum ratione rectè fiat, sic ratione peccetur : alterum et à paucis et raro alterum et sæpe et à pluribus: ut satius fuerit nullum omnino nobis à diis datam esse rationem, quàm tanta cum pernicie datam.—Itæ Cotta contra Deos in Cic. de Natur. Deor. 3. p. 111.